The Court of International Trade on July 10 kept the vast majority of the confidential record shielded from the public in Chinese printer cartridge exporter Ninestar Corp.'s suit against its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List. Judge Gary Katzmann only ordered an eight-page stretch of the confidential record unsealed, given that it detailed the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force's "standard operating procedures."
The Commerce Department dropped the subsidy rate for exporter KG Dongbu Steel Co. from 10.52% to 5.89% after deciding on remand not to countervail the company's three debt-to-equity restructurings. The trade court remanded Commerce's decision in the 2019 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea to countervail the restructurings after declining to countervail them in the preceding three CVD reviews (see 2404040043) (KG Dongbu Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00047).
The EU on July 3 declined to extend the protections in the Energy Charter Treaty -- a trade and investment deal for the energy sector -- to investments and investors from Russia and Belarus in order to boost its sanctions enforcement efforts, the European Commission announced. While neither Russia nor Belarus is a party to the Energy Charter Treaty, investors from these countries could theoretically use corporations set up in a signatory country to allege that the EU or its member states have violated "investment protection obligations" of the ECT and bring investor-state dispute settlement proceedings, the commission said. The EU's move eliminates the basis for making any such claim.
Douglas Robertson, former vice president of KanRus Trading Co., pleaded guilty on July 2 to conspiring to violate U.S. export laws by shipping "sophisticated and controlled avionics equipment to customers in Russia," DOJ announced.
A Hallandale, Florida, resident was charged on July 2 with smuggling controlled goods into Russia from the U.S. Kirill Gordei, president of Florida-based freight forwarding company Apelsin Logistics, faces three counts -- conspiracy to commit offenses against the U.S., smuggling goods from the U.S. and exporting a spectrometer, a controlled item, unlawfully -- DOJ announced. A Belarus citizen and U.S. permanent resident, Gordei faces maximums of five, 10 and 20 years in prison for the charges, respectively.
Antidumping duty petitioner Ventura Coastal invoked the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo -- which overturned the principle of Chevron deference -- to claim that the Court of International Trade doesn't need to adhere to the Commerce Department's interpretation of the statute "defining affiliation between parties" (Ventura Coastal v. U.S., CIT # 23-00009).
Neil MacBride, general counsel for the Treasury Department since February 2022, left the agency last week, he announced on LinkedIn. MacBride helped advise Treasury on issues relating to sanctions and terrorism finance, financial crimes enforcement and more, according to the department.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated June 17-27 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
Refraining from joining exporters’ June 13 submission to the Court of International Trade (see 2406140059), a plaintiff-intervenor importer filed its own motion for judgment making similar arguments against Commerce’s finding that Thai solar panel exporters had circumvented an antidumping duty order on solar panels from China (Canadian Solar International Limited v. U.S., CIT # 23-00222).
The EU General Court in a pair of decisions on June 26 annulled the sanctions listings of Russian businessman Dmitry Alexandrovich Pumpyanskiy and his wife, Galina Evgenyevna Pumpyanskaya. Pumpyanskiy was listed for supporting the Russian government and acting as a "leading businessperson operating in Russia" providing a "substantial source of revenue to the Government of Russia." He formerly served as chairman of Pipe Metalurgic Company (TMK) and president of investment firm Group Sinara, while his wife was listed solely for her link to the businessman. The court said the European Council can't rely on those listing criteria to maintain Pumpyanskiy's sanctions designation given that he no longer holds those positions at TMK or Group Sinara. Pumpyanskaya was removed because the sole basis of her designation was severed following her husband's successful appeal.